What Do You Mean You Had a Life Before Me?

Several years ago, my dad gave me a photo album.  It was in a box of stuff he had kept for a million years and he wondered if I might want it.  In it, he had saved a bunch of stuff from high school, including some cards from my mom.  There are school photos and all kinds of lovey snaps of my parents and pictures of my dad playing football.  Contained within those pages, are photographs of a trip to California that I have surmised that I was potentially conceived upon.  Let’s just skip that part, shall we?

This album is fascinating to me for two reasons.  One, when I was growing up, after their divorce, my parents pretty much hated each other.  Now, they would never come right out and say that they hated each other, but I'm going out on a limb here and saying they didn't like each other very much.   Two, I get to peek into the love-sick teenaged mind of my mother, right there in her own handwriting.  It is without a doubt one of the best gifts my dad ever gave me.

 

Last year, I was telling my aunt about this album because she was also on the California trip.  I have the bikini clad and blonde boyfriend pictures to prove it, but I’ll let her maintain her motherly image.  As often happens when I’m around my family, we start talking and inevitably the stories start happening and we all laugh and carry on for hours. 

I never tire of it. 

If you ever have the occasion to sit in a room with my mom and her sisters as they talk about growing up, grab yourself a large glass of wine and do it.  There was lots of subterfuge, under-age driving, rock concerts, and craziness that my Meme is happy to have been kept in the dark about.  My poor grandpa had five daughters and only one bathroom before my Meme went through ‘the change’ at age 42… that change turned out to be my Uncle Jimmy.  Because I’m in my thirties, there are very few stories that I haven’t heard them tell at least once.  Some, countless times from different perspectives, and I definitely have my favorites. 

I’m also old enough to remember my aunts as their younger selves.  My cousin, who is sixteen, was just flabbergasted that her mom, my aunt, was fun in her twenties.  She was in shock that she had a life before her, filled with fun and boyfriends and travel and an executive level career. 

She didn’t even drive a mini van.

It was about then that I realized that Finn is never going to believe there were ever any boys that adored his mother before his father.  Tate will never believe her mother did stupid things and got into trouble.  Those crazy, fun-Michelle stories they hear my sisters or my best friends howling with laughter about, they won't believe a word.

Because from the beginning of time, I was their mother.

And to my sweet P, doing teenaged things, figuring out which college will be lucky enough to have you, falling for boys, doing things you won’t share with your mom until you’re grown, laughing with friends, and conspiring with your sister…  Some day in the future, you will fight back laughter as your children don't believe you ever had a life before them either.

Kindness and a Birthday. Hey, Be Nice and Don’t Tell The Internet My Mom is 55.

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you might remember a few years ago, for my 34 birthday, we did 34 random acts of kindness.  It was awesome, it made me feel amazing.  I still tear up three years later when I watch the video that my sister put together or when I read all of the sweet RAOK all of you all did on my behalf.  I had lots and lots of help to get it all done from good friends like Stephanie, Danielle, Noelle, Kelly, and my sisters Lyndsey and Elise.  But mostly, it was my mom. 

A friend recently told me, “she is good people,” and she is.  She really, really is.

Now, most of you know and love my Janet stories because she is a lunatic.  Straight crazy and without a filter… you all wonder why I am the way I am?  You now have your answer. 

I have, over the years, shared with you the time that she met Snoop Dog and the recycling incident with “that guy” from Nine Inch Nails. 

I’ve told you her secrets like the time that she almost destroyed the living room with a 10 foot Christmas tree, the fact that she still legit writes paper checks at stores like an old lady, and that she buys karma points because she thinks that is an actual thing that the karma powers that be allow. 

You all have laughed, cheered, and adored her hilarious comments.  Even when she told the internet that her first kiss was Bill Voyles in kindergarten.

Ew.

{And Bill Voyles, if you are Googling yourself and find this, if you kissed my mother in kindergarten, you are now my nemesis!}

I have shared her with you.  And even though she doesn’t understand why the internet wants to read this particular brand of crazy, she likes you guys too. 

She decided that she wanted to do 55 acts of kindness for her birthday this year. 

Because she is old, she has been doing one thing each day leading up to her her birthday, rather than doing it all in one day.  That is almost two full months of consciously doing something kind each day.  {I’m having a tough time blogging something each day and we’re only on day 12!}  She started at the end of April on a business trip to NYC if that isn’t a tough place to do something nice for a stranger!  And now, we are a little over a week away.  I’m not going to tell you what lovely things she’s done, but I’ll tell you that they have been really touching.  And now, the favor that I’m going to ask… 

Will you please do something sweet and small this week on her behalf to end her 55 days of giving with a bang? 

I’m guessing, if she is right, that would buy you like a whole day of karma points.  I would love it if you came back and left a comment, even anonymously, about what you did and wished her a happy birthday.  But you don’t even have to do that, just put some kindness out there this week.

You don’t have any ideas? 

• Open a door. 
• Smile at someone and say hello. 
• Buy someone’s coffee.  Or lunch. 
• Pick up trash and throw it away. 
• Leave a dollar taped to the vending machine at work so someone can get a soda. 
• Give someone a hug.  
• Be courteous while driving.  
• Leave coupons tucked on the shelf for items at the grocery store.  
• Offer to take your grandparents to dinner. 
• Call your mother and tell her how amazing she is. 
• Write a letter to someone who has helped you in the past and thank them. 
• Make a donation to your favorite charity. 
• Give bottles of water to people working outside. 
• Offer to babysit for a friend. 
• Leave a note and a bottle of water for your mailman. 
• Take donuts to the firehouse or the police station. 
• Clean out your closet and donate the clothes you no longer need. 
• Help someone clean up their yard. 
• Visit a nursing home.
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen. 
• Donate to a school. 
• Take pet supplies to a rescue.
• Leave a huge tip for your waitress.
• Say THANK YOU. 
• Help someone.

Go on, do something kind.

Check.

This is Janet {for those of you are new here, Janet is my mom} at Costco.  While she wasn’t looking I snapped a picture of her WRITING AN ACTUAL CHECK.  Because she still does this.  Not just for things that must be mailed, but like at actual stores.

She is pretty much Dave’s shopping nightmare, the old lady writing a check.

And I now have myself disowned. 

Happy Tuesday.

Monday.

I really hope no one smells my armpits this morning because I ran out of deodorant.  Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t go without, I’m not that insane, I just borrowed Dave’s and I smell like a man.  My eighty-eight year old Meme totally hates the word ‘pits’ she thinks it is totally vulgar for some reason.  Anytime I think about my pits, I think of her. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t know how to use the internet or she’d call me this morning and say, “Oh, Shel, I can’t believe you said pits on the internet.”

She’d probably feel that way about a lot of what I post here, I’m guessing.  Hey, guess what?  Now I’m going to appall my mother too!

In case you’re new here, I’m a terrible housekeeper.  Terrible.  My mother finds this to be a fate worse than death that her daughter isn’t a neat freak.  Her nickname when we were growing up was Joan.  As in Crawford.  No she didn’t beat us with wire hangers, she just liked to wake us up at 7 am on a Saturday morning blasting the Ohio State fight song, to clean the house.  Our friends NEVER spent the night on Friday because she’d blast them out of bed too.  Then she’d make Lyndsey march around and dot the i. 

Are you getting a picture of why I am so weird?

She comes over to my house to babysit and folds my laundry while she’s here.   I can not be the only person in the world with perpetual baskets of clean laundry sitting around waiting to be folded.  Oh, but not for Janet, she pulls everything out of the dryer, folds it, and puts it away before the warning bell even dings on her fancy front loader. 

Don’t misunderstand, we are not straight Hoarder’s level by any means, but there is always chaos.  Always.  We clean the kitchen, we cook a meal for eight and use every pan in the house.  We clean the kids’ room, well… you can see where this is going, can’t you? 

I clean the same stack of toys 10 times a day, but it always always looks like a tornado has hit the living room.  When Tate is not into her toys, she’s pulling stacks of books out and not reading them.  Oh no, we only read Cinder the Bubble Blowing Dragon {close to probably ten times a day} but she likes to pull out all of the other books and taunt me with them anyway. 

Look at that book you haven’t read a million times Mom… doesn’t that story look intriguing?  Oh yeah, well, here is Cinder… again this time do it with your eyes closed, from memory.

So I’m not really a spring cleaner, per se but in the fall, there’s something about the prospect of cold weather and being stuck in the house.  It makes me want to clear out and go through stuff.  I have stacks of baby clothes to send to my cousin.  Another pile of stuff for the boys.  Last night I cleaned off our dumping ground desk.  Last week I cleaned the kids’ room.  It’s like winter is coming, everything must be organized right now.  Right now!

Or maybe it’s just a Pavlovian response to hearing the Ohio State fight song.

My Mom.

You would think that by the time you’re 35 years old, you’re old enough to not need your mother anymore.  Oh sure, at 16 or 17 or 18, you’re SURE you don’t need your mom anymore, but really you’re a dumbass.  But at 35, it seems like you should be over needing your Mama.

I am not.

Sure, sure, she drives me absolutely nuts at times, to which Dave will attest.  She is an awful driver, but a champion {we are talking world class here} parallel parker.  She gets Finn maddeningly hyped up and gives him juice and buys him gifts at every turn.  She sometimes has to be told she’s overstepping bounds.  I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but we’re rather blunt in my family.  Sometimes, frankly, she needs a kick in the ass.  But for every time I am crazed by something she’s done, there are 12 times that she’s done something wonderful.

A hug right when I need it.

Coming home to a spotless house after being in the hospital.

She hosts every family dinner and occasion without complaint even though I know the amount of time and energy it takes.

We go to the Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning and she takes Finn to get his lemonade and ‘breakfast cookie’ so Dave and I can stroll around together, just the two of us.

She calls me just to see how I’m feeling.

She loves Lyndsey and I equally, but differently.  A delicate mix to be sure, and something I hope to achieve with my children.

She is an endless source of laughter.  Belly cramping, people looking at us like we’ve lost our minds, tear inducing laughter.

She is there.  At four in the morning or in the middle of a meeting.  She is always right there if I need her.

She gives of herself every single day.  Fully.  To work.  To her family, friends, and strangers alike. 

She is a champion for those who don’t realize their own worth.

She is more than my mom, she is my friend.  I genuinely admire who she is as a person.

And today, she is old. 

Jan Bob, there would be an unmistakable void in our lives without you in it.

I hope you have the best birthday ever.  I love you. 

And so does Dave.  And Finn.  And Lyndsey.  And Richard.  And Meme.  And your brother and your sisters.  And every one of the friends you’ve had since you were twelve.  And the new ones you’ve made along the way.  And random strangers on the internet who read stories about the time you met Snoop or “that guy” from Nine Inch Nails.

Birthday Dinner for Eight {and a Midget}

This party idea came to me in the midst of a sleepless night.  My mom gave me the criteria that she just wanted to have dinner to celebrate her birthday and specifically requested that I make a batch of Sea Salt Chocolate Covered Oreos.  That isn't much to go on, but once I started thinking of her favorite things, it all came together.  White roses, Michael Buble, and white cake with chocolate frosting all needed to be included.  And her friends and family... but how to do that AND keep her request for a small dinner celebration?

I wanted something summery {which equals grilled} for the menu, but then we figured out it would be 91 degrees with the added bonus of rain and I didn't want to stick Dave with grilling after working all day.  So, here is the menu that my sister and I came up with...

The Menu
Romaine Salad {mandarin oranges, strawberries, green apple, feta, & toasted sunflower seeds} with Strawberry Basil Vinagrette
Pistachio Encrusted Pork Loin Chops with Apricot Glaze and {homemade} Plum Sauce
Basil Rosemary Garlic Smashed Fingerling Potatoes {red, purple, & gold potatoes}
Balsamic Roasted Carrots
Almond Birthday Cake with Chocolate Raspberry Frosting

Everything was outstanding!  I was a little nervous because pork can be so touchy, one wrong move and it's dry.  I'll be happy to post the recipes later because I would make everything again, especially so the potatoes. 

Favor/Place Card
Sea Salt Chocolate Covered Oreos

I used a favor box, lined it with some waxed paper, added two of the chocolate covered Oreos sprinkled with merlot sea salt, and used some pretty paper and a paper clip for place cards.  It was nice to send the Oreos home instead of stuffing more food in after cake.

A few days before the dinner, I sent out a mass email to everyone I could think of asking for their birthday wish for my mom.  People sent some really funny, heartwarming remarks about my mom that I knew she would love.  I compiled everything and printed them out on paper that matched the cream, grey, sage, & blue color scheme.  I found cute paper clips in the blue & green so I used those to clip the notes and some black and white photos of my mom to ribbon that I attached to the wall.  It was similar to a clothes line.  She absolutely loved it and read each and every one.  When she left, we wrapped them all up so she could keep them.

Happy Birthday Mom!  I hope it was everything you'd hoped, good food, wonderful company, and a relaxing evening.  May you have many many more!

Janet

Growing up, my mom and I often did not see eye to eye.  That is really a mild understatement you know.  In the fourth grade, we used to fight every morning about what I would wear to school.  Fourth grade people.  When fifth grade rolled around and so did a mandatory school uniform, she said it was one of the greatest moments of her life.  Until, I convinced her to let me get my hair cut like Cindy Lauper, short on one side, long on the other because you know, school uniforms stifle individuality. 

I'm pretty sure it even started before that.  When I was seven, I told her that I knew she was Santa in my bossy little voice, "because YOU write just like Santa and I saw the receipts!"  Ha!  Take that mom with your stupid little farce... trying to be nice playing Santa and filling up the tree with gifts like Christina my beloved Cabbage Patch Doll, I'll show you!  I may have ruined Christmas.

It continued through high school.  She used to wake us up Saturday mornings with the Ohio State Fight Song to clean the house.  No one wanted to stay at our house during football season.  We gave her the nickname Joan Crawford and talked about how TOTALLY unfair it was.  High school is also when I started calling her Janet.  Sometimes, Jan Bob.  She had to have wanted to kick me right in the ass.  But she didn't.

Instead, she let me be me. 

After graduation I went to Belgium as an exchange student and I walked right on to that plane without so much as a second glance.  I was very nonchalant about leaving for 10 months of my life because ugh... WHO would be homesick for this stupid place?  Turns out... me, that's who.  When I was sure I wanted to come home, she begged me to stay.  After two months, I came home anyway.  I think part of the reason I don't regret it is because she was so sure that I would.  Oh yeah Mom, just to spite you I will make sure this was the best decision of my whole life. 

We didn't speak to each other for nearly six months.  That was the moment right there, that we started dealing with each other as adults instead of parent and child. 

My first 'real' job was for a giant corporation.  She had to convince me to go to the interview because "ugh, I would never want to work for a giant corporation like you.  It's just not my thing."  She told me to at least interview for practice, so I did.  I worked there for 9 years and met my husband there. 

Did someone mention Dave?  The first time I brought him to my Meme's house, my mother told me he was the man I was going to marry.  I balked because I knew better, of course.  It would take Dave and I another year to figure that out for ourselves.

Oh, and the wedding?  She threw a fit because our caterer wanted to use plastic glasses so she paid extra to get real glass, she flew to San Francisco to buy the wine for our wedding directly from the vineyards and she thought we were I was {because I am pretty sure Dave agreed with her} a dumbass for having a "candy bar" in 2005 before people like Amy Atlas took them to an entirely new level.  Why she chose those particular things to focus on, I'll never know.  Dave referred to her as a tornado and said sometimes it's better to just duck and cover so we conceeded on the glass and the wine, but I didn't give up that candy bar.



So, my dear Jan Bob, it's Mother's Day... I know I haven't always been the easiest daughter, or the most tidy, or the one with the best attitude.   I know I often am stubborn, bossy, & know better than everyone else.  I'm a fierce competitor, annoyingly independent, got into all kinds of trouble, and fought with my sister.  I now spend my days telling the whole internet crazy shit about our family and I might be just a tad moody... sometimes.

But I am yours. 

And you are mine. 

And for that I am thankful. 

There isn't another who can ever fill your shoes Mom. 

Ever.


Happy Mother's Day.  Go hug your Janet today.

I Miss My Plastic Charm Necklace.

Once, when Lyndsey and I were little, she shoved American cheese into my Strawberry Shortcake Blow Kiss doll.  You have no idea what I am talking about?  Strawberry Shortcake had baby dolls that, when you squeezed them, would blow fruit scented air into your face.  It was our favorite activity while dancing around in our Wonder Woman underoos watching Saturday morning cartoons.  I believe these days, they call it huffing, but whatevs. We had Lemon Meringue and Strawberry.  And Lyndsey had shoved the american cheese into her mouth which put the end to the strawberry scented goodness until one day, the cheese dried out enough to be dislodged just so.  When we pushed on her belly, she shot cheese out of her mouth at such a great speed that I'm pretty sure Rainbow Brite and Christina Marie were scared.  Christina Marie was my Cabbage Patch... she had a normal name because she was one of the first edition, procured by some miracle the Christmas I was seven  by my Meme from a friend of hers in New York.  Don't tell anyone, but she still lives in my house.

Lynds and I were children of the eighties.  We walked to the drugstore to buy giant flourescent pink triangle earrings.  We wore jelly shoes until our feet blistered.  We had every color of embroidery floss imaginable and would spend hours making friendship bracelets.  That was after the beaded friendship pin craze had died off a bit.  The Christmas that I was in sixth grade, my aunt took me to the Limited to buy an Outback Red shirt, I was in seventh heaven.  It was just about as awesome as my friends renting a white limo for my thirteenth birthday.  We rode around and drank two liters of soda.  How cool can you get?

My aunt also worked for Apple and got a IIe for us.  My mom probably had a $400 phone bill every month in 1987 when we were introduced to Prodigy by my Uncle Jim.  "Mom, we can meet someone in Oklahoma or Maine or New Hampshire!  You just use the phone line!  It is sooooo cool."  It lived in our bedroom, that we somehow convinced my mother to let us paint with bright white walls and black trim.  I can't even fathom the kind of "cool mom" factor it takes to let your pre-teens paint that hideousness with your blessing. 

Of course, it wasn't all Funshine & Cheer Bears, there were bad things too.  It is still the bane of my existance that I lost the tape of Lyndsey falling on her butt captured on my PXL-2000.  I was sure that was my ticket to Bob Sagett and his Funny Videos.  We ran out of cake mix & light bulbs burnt out of our Easy Bake Ovens.  My cousin John had all of his action figures stolen right out of the back of my Meme's Pacer in the parking lot of the grocery store.  And we do have photographic evidence of me only wearing pink and white, mostly flashdance-esque sweatshirts, for about two years of my life.  And the shoulder pads, the shoulder pads.  Who would let a fourth grader wear a turquoise blazer with shoulder pads to school?  That's right.  My mother. 

And the charm necklace.  Ohhhhh the sweet sweet plastic charm necklace.  Filled with clip on charms like a baby bottle, a tennis racket, and an abacus, because in 1985, you never knew when you might need a miniature plastic abacus.  To do your counting of Hello Kitty items or Garbage Pail Kid cards or ummm whatever?  If I had that pink plastic goodness today, I would be forced to wear it AND pretend I was putting on the plastic lipstick charm, the awesomeness was just that powerful.  There is no point in denying it.

This post is really for my awesome friend Merrily, who introduced me to this book, modeled by the gorgeous Christina Marie herself...

It's a book, it's a Trapper, there are images of smelly stickers, it's totally RAD.  I read this and laughed hysterically.  And now, I'm passing it on to one of you.  {Full disclosure, I totally paid for this sucker & already read it.} Leave a comment with YOUR favorite and thing about the eighties.  I will choose a winner on Friday, February 5.

Gotta go.  Digrassi Junior High is on and my crimper is done heating up. 

{UPDATE:  Thank you to all the entries!  The winner, chosen very democratically by writing everyone's name on paper and having Finnegan choose one, is GEORGIE!  Congrats!  I need your address to get your book to you!}

I saw that doggie dog guy, well apparently he raps.

A couple years ago, my mom was in Miami for a builder's convention. She and her friend Gale got to the hotel early and find that it is so packed, it's hard to get in the hotel. She thought it was the convention, but a apparently there is a big concert that night.

So my mom doesn't think anything of it and she decides to go for a run before they go to dinner. When she gets back there are bazillion peeps in the area just outside of the lobby and she can't get through.  She is hot, sweaty, and annoyed.

Then a guy in {her words} "a 1970s shiny, ugly, jogging suit wearing sunglasses" sees her pushing her way through.  He sees her and says, "C'mon in. Hey. Get out of her way. Hi. Did you have a nice run?"

She says back, "Yep. Thanks. Have a nice day," and continues through to the doors of the hotel.

This is the conversation that follows:

Porter 1 - DO YOU know who that is??

Mom - No.

Porter 1 - That's Snoop Dogg.  {D-O-double G, you see.}

Mom - Isn't he the guy from the Lee Iaccoca commercial??

Porter 1 & Porter 2 & Doorman - *hysterical laughter*

Only. My. Mother.

Just got off the phone with my mom... this was the conversation.

me - What's going on?

mom - Just got back from taking the recycling.

me - Oh?

mom - I met some guy from Nine Inch Nails.

me - WHAT????????

mom - Yeah.

me - WHAT?? Seriously? What happened?

mom - I was taking the recycling over. It's at Seagate. So I was throwing bottles in and the security guard came over and asked me how long it would be and I told him however long it took to throw the stuff in. Then I asked him if he wanted to help me so he did. {At this point in my mind I am thinking ok, someone walked by or whatever. But no....} So then this guy walks out of the tour bus and says that he wanted to see who was making all the noise. {I am hyperventilating at this point, please don't let it be Trent, please don't let it be Trent, please tell me my mother didn't just wake up Trent from his nap.} So, I told him it was me and asked if he wanted to help me too. So he said sure.

(SEVERAL MOMENTS OF PAUSE.)

me - ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME?

mom - no. I didn't know who he was.

me - this is worse than Snoop Dogg. Worse than Snoop Dogg!

mom - what?

me - It didn't occur to you that he was walking out of a TOUR BUS??????

mom - I thought maybe he was a skateboarder or something. There was a skateboard outside the tourbus.

me - Oh. my. god. So then what happened?????

mom - So then he was yapping away for a little bit, I said thanks and left. I stopped at the security guard to tell him thanks and he said, "Mam, do you know who that was??" and I said no. So he told me it was so and so from Nine Inch Nails.

me - Who was it? Mom, was it Trent? Was his name TRENT??

mom - I don't remember. He had brown hair.

me - Jesus.



So mom.... which one of these guys helped you throw your fruitfly filled wine bottles into the recycling bin???????